School shuffle? Dominion may figure in Columbus City Schools plans

KEVIN PARKS THISWEEKNEWS.COM @KevinParksTW1

Monday

Sep 3, 2018 at 9:30 AM

Stephen Hardwick will be doing double duty at the Sept. 6 meeting of the Clintonville Area Commission.

Not only will he appear in his normal role as chairman of the commission's zoning and variance committee, introducing a proposal that would pave the way for a former funeral home on North High Street to become a day care, he also will don another hat and give a presentation as a member of the Columbus City Schools Facilities Task Force.

In the latter capacity, Hardwick indicated he wanted to discuss reorganization plans under consideration that would affect both Dominion Middle School, 330 E. Dominion Blvd., and the former North High School building on Arcadia Avenue, currently home to Columbus North International School.

"He wanted to make sure everybody knew about it," said Libby Wetherholt, chairwoman of the area commission.

According to The Columbus Dispatch, the district's potential reorganization scenarios include:

* Closing Marion-Franklin High School in south Columbus, which is 53 percent full, reassigning its students to South High School and converting it into a middle school in a large feeder-pattern reorganization that moves sixth-graders from elementary schools and into middle schools. Buckeye Middle School would close.

* Converting Linden-McKinley STEM Academy, a Linden facility made up of students in grades 7-12, into a 6-8 middle school, transferring its high school students to East High School. Mifflin Middle School would close, with its students shifted to Medina Middle School.

* Moving Columbus Alternative High School into the former North High School site in Clintonville, while shifting the Columbus North International High School to the former Brookhaven High School site, which it would share with Columbus Global Academy.

* Alternatively, relocating the overcrowded Dominion Middle School in Clintonville, which is at 114 percent of capacity, into the former North High School campus, with International High School moving to Brookhaven.

Two options include closing Siebert Elementary School in south Columbus. Others call for adjusting the boundaries of five other elementary buildings: Highland, West Broad, North Linden, Westgate and Maize. In an email, Hardwick focused on what's potentially in the works that would involve Clintonville schools.

"The main two options are ... to move both Dominion Middle School and grades 6-8 from the French and Spanish immersion schools to the North building or ... move CAHS to the North building," he wrote. "Dominion has a severe overcrowding issue; the district reports that, because of overcrowding, it turned away 48 kids from Dominion this year even though they live in the Dominion area. They also report that Dominion is at 114 percent of its capacity. CAHS has a severe conditions problem; the building wasn't designed to be a high school, and it is falling apart.

"Also on the table are doing nothing and moving only Dominion into the building."

The task force, which was convened earlier this year by Interim Superintendent John Stanford, was scheduled to make a preliminary recommendation Aug. 30, which would be followed by a month of public meetings, Hardwick said.

"The (school) board needs to make its final decision by November," he wrote.

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